NCT06014281

Examining the Effects of Regular Brief Internet-based Meditation Practice on Mental Health and Well Being

An Internet-administered Randomized Control Trial to Examine the Effects of Regular, Brief Meditation Practice on Mental Health and Well Being

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 300 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Stanford University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The study will examine the effects of online meditation training on stress and anxiety in healthy participants. It will also examine the dose-response relationship between the amount of daily focused attention meditation practice and established mental health outcome measures.

Detailed description

This is a 16-week study with an 8-week meditation intervention, with a requirement of a minimum of 10 minutes of meditation practice each day. This study will recruit \~200 healthy subjects (18+ years) with no current or previous diagnosis of psychiatric or neurological disorders who are interested in learning about meditation but don't have long-term experience with meditation. Half of the participant pool will be randomly assigned to the meditation intervention, and the other half will get the wait-list control assignment. The control group will later receive its intervention, likely a few weeks after the completion of the active group's intervention. A focused-attention meditation technique (SOS meditation) will be used to train participants. Changes in participants' physiological markers (e.g., HRV, physical activity, respiration rate, sleep quality) will be evaluated using passive activity monitoring devices (e.g., Fitbit). Intervention-related changes in mental health will be assessed using web-based mental health and well-being surveys. Improvements in cognitive functioning will be assessed using web-based psychological tasks.

Conditions

• Healthy
• Well-Being, Psychological

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	SOS Meditation	Focused-attention meditation technique will be used to train participants, specifically the SOS meditation technique. The SOS meditation technique is an easy-to-learn approach where participants are instructed to dissociate their attention from physical awareness, thoughts, and emotions by mentally slowly repeating a calming word or phrase (chosen by the participant themselves). SOS Meditation Instructions: * Close your eyes very gently, in a relaxed way, as you do when we go to sleep * Your attention should be fully alert. Try not to put any strain on your eyes or try to look up. * Focus your eyes about eight to ten inches into the field of darkness in front of you on the horizontal plane * Mentally repeat the (chosen) calming word * Sit lovingly and calmly to see what comes up, as if you were watching a movie screen and waiting to see what appears on it.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-11-01
• Primary completion: 2025-06-30
• Completion: 2025-07-30
• First posted: 2023-08-28
• Last updated: 2025-05-22

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States